Just wondering,.. My dad talks about people back when he was a little kid in the early forties breaking horses to rope in a way I never saw before but have heard other older men talk about where they took a young horse and ran a rope through a stout fence to a yearling, tied off to the horn and stepped out of the way. The idea was that after getting slammed up against that fence a time or two the horse would wise up , sit back and face that rope real quick. There was a family in the area then { all deceased now} who I suspect they all learned it from, This familys old granddad had brought a herd of cattle up from Texas in the early days and the story was that was how they did it down there back then . The old guys that remember seeing it said that it worked quite well although it would certainly be a rough way to go it seems and not acceptable now days, just wondering if anybody else has heard of something like this from the older generations.

There are lots of 'old ways' with horses that aren't common any more. Slower, smoother and safer techniques have been established.

They don't tell you of the horses that were killed or maimed doing it 'the old way. Horses back then were used so they got rode enough to get past the rough breaking, anyway most of them. Some of them never forgot how they were treated. There are two ways to treat a horse, as a slave or a partner. I guess it's up to you which one you want.

I don't know of anyone who gives horses a rough start any more, but I'm sure there are some out there. I don't care to know them, but I do know several horsemen who I feel are qualified to 'start' a young horse in fine fashion.

There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn't true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.

Thanks for the reply. Yeah, I'm not advocating stuff like this, got two good horses that certainly weren't finished like that. guess my question is really meant to be more history oriented rather than practical training in mind because of the trail drive connection. I'm just trying to learn if this was just a local thing or if it had been in more general use at one time and possibly others out there might also have recollections of it, hence the inquiry

redheeler 1 wrote:Thanks for the reply. Yeah, I'm not advocating stuff like this, got two good horses that certainly weren't finished like that. guess my question is really meant to be more history oriented rather than practical training in mind because of the trail drive connection. I'm just trying to learn if this was just a local thing or if it had been in more general use at one time and possibly others out there might also have recollections of it, hence the inquiry

I understand. Not sure many on here would talk about it. We had an bad incident here a long time ago of a guy bragging about what he did to unruly cattle. It was abusive and that didn't go over very well.

There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn't true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.

I read the old californios would tie a rope off and rope something with horns. Then step off and school was in session. Probably worked too.

My one good horse roping story
About 3O years ago, I was catching killer horses off wheat pasture. when the market was real hot. There was a big pretty bay mare that was maybe 15 by the gruve and no part of quiet. She wouldn't fall for bait so roping her made sense. I was riding a nice buckskin, but you don rope horses using your good horses. It's hard on their mind unless they're really sound minded. Ol buck would flip with you so he was not so prized. I tried to run at ol bay and just run her down cause buck had lotsa run. That bay mare could fly. She'd runoff and leave me lonesome - and make it look easy.

Injured pride precedes stupidity, and I was indeed injured. I continued trying to rope the&&&& mare . You know drive her away from the herd and cut the arch when she tried to herd up. I threw a couple long lines at her and she would bad word out from under my rope. Some more injured pride and I decided to tie off my tail "so I wouldn't have to catch her but once. I made futile chase a little longer when I sorta had her pinned against a cut bank. She paused at the river bank and I took my shot. I looped her hast as she started to jump in the creek, and that rope came tight just as ol buck was jumping after her. That rope jerked us sideways and gravity put us in the creek. Ol bay was pulling us up the creek - I was stuck with my leg under ol buck so I was drinking more than I was breathing - I'd have been scared if I was smarter. Then buck fought his way to his feet, and I held on cause that's what I did. Buck worked that rope like he was batman at the nfr. Rember, just because you can rope something, doesn't mean you should.

That'd be my excuse for sure. My dad would say "the tragedy of generations is you can't pass wisdom from one generation to the next one."

Maybe it works better to skip a generation or two in the passing on of wisdom. Good things and bad both come of no longer having so much contact as previous generations. As in when the grandparents or 'greats' lived in the same home and spent more time actually talking to and showing/sharing their knowledge directly with the little kids.

A current thing we see is our four year old great grand daughter watching the 'men' in her life, and her mom and dad, aunts and uncles, grandpa's and especially great grandpa as they are doing normal ranch chores. She is especially observant of great grandpa Shorty mixing and filling vaccine guns. My guess is that if she had the hand to eye coordination needed, she could do that job. Of course, that won't be allowed for several years, but observing the care and hearing the reasons for what the older people are doing. Shorty CERTAINLY is more patient at explaining such things to her than he was with our kids at the same age!!!. And we do hear more about safety than in previous years. I'm a real 'nervous Nellie' about keeping them safe, yet allowing room to teach and experience as much as they can while they are interested. And get them 'hooked' while they see that 'work' is fun!!! Plenty of time later to fit in the gritty stuff and fact that it can get tiresome, too. And us old geezers will stay out of nursing homes as long as possible if we have valuable 'jobs' teaching our 'wisdom' to an appreciative audience! Probably wishful thinking, but it can work pretty well for some, and probably is being done more than we realize.